...In its light, human history, for the first time, becomes intelligible, and human behaviour understandable as never before. This radical transformation in human understanding - which has come to a peak in the mid 1990's - I shall call "the new evolutionary enlightenment" . I confidently predict that, because it is based on fully tested scientific knowledge, it will far outshine the enlightenment of the 18th century.
-Derek Freeman-

1) From time to time a new discovery force the rethinking of our origins. How complete is the jigsaw of our evolutionary past?

There is a great deal we don’t yet know –not least about the social and psychological aspects of our fossil ancestors.

2) When a elephant looks itself trough a mirror people says that he is self conscious. Don't you think that this is too much?

It depends on what you mean by “self-conscious”. They are surely conscious in some sense –but not in the same sense as adult humans. That is to say, so far as we know they cannot step back from the world and reflect on it –or reflect on their own mental states in the way we can. I don’t think the mirror test is a good test of self-consciousness in that sense. But I am happy to accept that they have the same kind of self-consciousness as a child aged 3-4 years –and they probably share this with many other advanced mammals (primates, dolphins, horses and others).

3) Why you believe that the cognitive limit of the number of persons with which we can maintain a stable relationship is about 150?

We originally predicted this value from our equation relating group size to neocortex (brain) size in primates. We have since found a lot of evidence for the existence of a social grouping level of this size in humans (including data from personal social networks, village sizes in past centuries, etc)

4) We are moral beings that evolved (and live today) in a fragile equilibrium between our interests both as selfish individuals as well as members of a group whose health is vital for our survival. What are the psichological and behavioural effect of this evolutionary pressure in our moral instincts?

I imagine that our moral sentiments (or the capacity to have moral sentiments) arose to allow us to manage the complex relationships necessary to maintain our large social groups as coherent societies. The social groups of all primates are implicit social contracts, which means you have to give up something (your own immediate desires) to obtain the benefit provided by cooperation at the group level. But that offers so many opportunities to cheat –to take the benefit of the contract but no pay the cost- that we need mechanisms to prevent us from cheating so often that the group is destroyed. A moral sense and a conscience seem admirable mechanism to help with that tak.

5) What are the similarities and differences between us and the rest of the primates?

We share many aspects of our social world with other primates, and especially the great apes (to whom we are most closely related). One of those is the fact that our big success in evolution is based on an intense form of sociality- solving the problems of successful survival and reproduction by communal means. The differencies, I think, lie only in the size of the community that we can cope with…and in turn with the levels of cognition needed to do that. It seems that this cognition is especially related to these mentalising abilities –the ability to imagine other worlds and especially other minds. The other monkeys and apes are very limited in these capacities, but we have develop them to a level where we can make literature and drama –as well as science.

6) How do you think the language and music evolved? what is your opinion about the Steven Mithen ideas in this area?

My view is that language evolved to help us bond these large social communities. Hoewer, language seems to me to have evolved quite large, and that leaves a big gap to be filled in between us and our early ancestors. I Agree with Steven Mithen that music probably provided a precursor for language –that it evolved first as a bonding mechanism and that language used some of the key capacities that had been evolved for music (well, singing really), such as breath control and synchronisation, segmentation, etc. Of course, language reminds a mind to create the sentences as well, but the mechanism of speech that make language as an activity possible seem to have a very common link with music.

7) What are you working on now? What is tour most intellectual challenge? What is the mistery that you would dream to uncover?

We are currently trying to understand what relationships are, and especially what pairbonds are. This is something that has been ignored in most of the literature (except for social psychology), but really we have very little idea what relationships actually are. And we certainly don’t have a way of measuring their strength so that we can compare one person’s relationship with another person’s to see how that influences their behaviour and fitness.

Sarah B. Hrdy. American anthropologist and primatologist who has made several major contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology.

"Recommendation of Javier Moreno, Germanico: Senor Moreno interviewed me on line for his compilation the New Evolutionary Enlightenment.I found his questions both intelligent and penetrating. I enjoyed answering them and being caused to think in depth about serious and sometimes fundamental matters. He has considerable talent in an area in which interviewers are prone to be lamentably superficial".

John Postgate, Profesor Emérito de Microbiología.de la Universidad de Sussex.

“Javier is editor of "The new Evolutionary Enlightenment" (http://ilevolucionista.blogspot.com), which is a blog concerned with the science and philosophy of Mind. His many interviews with leading researchers in this field provide valuable insights into current thinking about Mind.”

“Javier interviewed me as Editor of La Nueva Ilustración Evolucionista in a most knowledgable yet empathic way. I was well pleased with the result and consider that his on line site speaks for itself with so many excellent, highly readable and pertinent interviews. I can thoroughly recommend him".

“Javier interviewed me for his website http://www.ilevolucionista.blogspot.com/ in 2009. He has built up an impressive collection of interviews there with almost every key thinker in evolutionary psychology. This in itself is testimony to his professionalism, dedication, and intellectual curiosity".

Dylan Evans, Lecturer in Behavioural Science, University College Cork.

“Javier Moreno, aka "Germanico," has performed an important service in making the work of scholars and writers in the field of evolutionary biology and allied fields accessible to the wider interantional public by designing and curating the website La Nueva Ilustración Evolucionista / The New Evolutionary Enlightenment. From my own experience as one of the participants and a reader of dozens of other entries, I can attest that the interviews are conducted in a penetrating fashion with the objective of extracting the most distinctive aspects of each writer's work, the translations (between English and Spanish as required) are done in a careful and lucid fashion, and the physical production is of a high aesthetic quality. In my opinion, Javier has made an original and useful contribution to world culture".

Stuart Newman, Professor, New York Medical College.

"This website is an extraordinary labour of love, with detailed and penetrating questions to many of the leading figures in evolutionary biology. It is a tribute to the quality of the questions, and their creative online presentation, that so many notable evolutionary biologists have answered, not merely quick answers, but detailed and comprehensive essays in many cases. This is an unusual and meaningful achievement".

"One of the most interesting interview sites for the sciences of human nature, available to Spanish- and English-speakers alike".

Steven Pinker. Catedrático de Psicología en Harvard.

“Javier's website, The new Evolutionary Enlightenment, is well worth a visit. You will find interviews with all the most interesting people thinking about the evolutionary basis of human behaviour (and also C & U Frith)”.

Chris Frith, Emeritus professor of neuropsychology, University College London.

"I'd like to recommend Javier "Germanico" Moreno as en amazing person, whose intellect and passion resulted in creation of one of the most professional popular-science web services. The list of the outstanding researchers from different fields of science, who took part in his project is really impressive. I'm sure he will be able to engage himself in other activities with equal passion and professionalism".